


Desolate

by madcowmama



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, brittana fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madcowmama/pseuds/madcowmama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Santana drives back to Louisville after Thanksgiving break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desolate

Santana is in between again, on the road from Lima to Louisville. Somehow the perfect thermos of coffee Brittany gave her before she left and the perfect fries she picked up a half hour ago have grappled unsettlingly in her guts. Well, she's awake enough to drive, anyway.

But here is the truth: she hasn't slept well in ages. And every time sleep happens, she is too soon awakened by a dream, or a memory, or a memory of a dream.

It is exhausting.

And not only that, she is walking around with a stake through her chest invisible to everyone else. Everyone, of course, except Brittany. She knows it is crazy, but she can actually feel when the ends of it brush against something else —or someone else— and it pulls and is unpleasant.

She's doing it again, the same thing as ever.

And this too is true: in the dream the one leaves, and the other is a dream.

She sees but does not hear Brittany saying: I hear you, but you don't hear me.

After all this time, the car is redolent of her vanilla. She has to turn to see that Brittany is not there beside her.

So the leaving is the same thing as ever. This time she's left physically, most times she's left physically, but other times she just… goes away. And being so far from her dream also makes her just… go away.

Oddly, the only one who's noticed has been her coach, who has pulled her aside after practice twice now to let her know she knows her heart isn't in it. And, for safety and for her scholarship, it needs to be. None of the "mentors" —none!— even so much as asked about school, about Brittany, about how things are going, or if she's happy.

Maybe it's because she wasn't really there, either. The realest thing to happen over Thanksgiving break was slapping Quinn, and that's funny —mirthless laugh— because it was like it was staged.

Did you say something, Britty?

And the moments with Britt, ridiculous because of how she controlled how few and how short they were, excruciating because Brittany was warm and beautiful and sweet and shy and funny —dreamy, even— but never approached any closer than Santana initiated. She didn't seem hurt at all. Just, like, there, but on the other side of a thick plexiglass partition.

It's not like she needs her or anything. Santana can stand on her own feet. It's not like they could be together anyway. It's for the best.

(But it's desolate.)

Well, maybe. Yes, maybe. But they both need to be doing what they are doing right now, and that makes it pretty much impossible to be together. So again, the leaving.

_And in the dream, the one parent leaves, and the other is a dream._

Leaving, she'd tried to make it casual, like friends. Like best friends. But keeping herself from touching Brittany at all, that was next to impossible. That was like taking both ends of the stake and yanking sideways. She'd kept her hands, she'd kept her lips off Brittany studiously and concertedly and religiously for four days. And when it was time to say goodbye, Brittany had leaned in briefly, automatically, and brushed her cheek with her lips, then pulled away, as if she'd remembered that wasn't what they were doing now. And when they came apart, Santana's face was wet. She'd turned and left.

All the way back to Louisville, she knows Brittany is saying: I hear you, but you, you cannot hear me.


End file.
